Despite increased shipments and sales reported in its second quarter (FY) results, China Sunergy has been forced to lower quarterly and full-year guidance due Chinese banks tightening credit facilities, restricting the company’s ability to purchase materials and products for production.

Soon after REC split its polysilicon and PV module manufacturing operations into separate companies, REC Silicon is to reduce its workforce by approximately 60 across all locations, with immediate effect.

Shunfeng Photovoltaic International has successfully acquired the PV manufacturing operations of Suntech Wuxi with administrator approval for around US$490 million. Suntech Wuxi had debts of more than US$2.3 billion.

The Colorado manufacturing facility of Abound Solar, which went bankrupt, has been reported by US news outlets as having left toxic and hazardous waste behind that could cost as much as US$3.7 million to clean up.

A common theme at PV Taiwan 2013, being held in Taipei this week, has been a series of solar cell and module manufacturers cautiously planning incremental production capacity expansions as the global PV market demand continues to pick up.

Looking back, 2014 was a year of convalescence for a PV industry still battered and bruised from a period of ferocious competition. End-market demand continued apace, with analysts towards the end of 2014 predicting the year would see between around 45 and 50GW of deployment. That has begun to feed through to the supplier end of the market, with all the main manufacturers announcing capacity expansions in 2015 and further ahead.

Although the past few years have proved extremely testing for PV equipment manufacturers, falling module prices have driven solar end-market demand to previously unseen levels. That demand is now starting to be felt by manufacturers, to the extent that leading companies are starting to talk about serious capacity expansions later this year and into 2015. This means that the next 12 months will be a critical period if companies throughout the supply chain are to take full advantage of the PV industry’s next growth phase.